Viewpoint

EgyptAir crash coverage is biased and speculative

The media currently assert that the prayers of an EgyptAir co-pilot suggest foul play. This linkage came before experts agreed upon the contents of his statements. When precisely it was said and its relevance to the context of the situation are both given less regard than they should be. Different news sources do not even agree on the translations, the significance of the prayer, when and who pulled which switches and other important details that require more time and research. The media are spitting out a steady stream of contradictory and inconsistent reports.

You cannot read two media sources and get the same story. In fact, only one of the major news channels has called the idea that it was a suicide by what it truly is, a "hypothesis." Most of the media treat it as if it is true before the conclusion is made.

One of the most difficult challenges for any media professional is reporting on an unfamiliar culture or religion. The potential for misunderstanding and misinformation resulting from such reporting mandates an extra degree of caution, especially when involving a tradition of jumping to mistaken conclusions. It also includes more than just side-comments by "experts" who get less than 30 seconds to clear up the collage of ambiguities and inaccuracies the rest of the nightly news was devoted to constructing. Experts should be relied on to challenge the fundamental presumptions the media make about Muslims and Arabs; that means using them at deeper stages of the news-gathering and interpreting process.

CNN reported "U.S. linguists ... disagree over how to interpret the words on the tape and what significance to give them." Yet, the speculations fly.

This is indicative of a fundamental flaw of the media. Instead of collecting and confirming all the pieces of evidence pragmatically to use to deduce a conclusion, the media work backwards. Many (not all) start with the unsolved puzzle, pre-determined by simplistic and ignorant associations, and work to fit the unfolding pieces of evidence into it. As you can imagine, this requires a lot of distortion and corner-cutting. How will a viable answer be solved this way?

The Muslim and Arab community on campus has a genuine concern that the truth behind the situation is pursued sincerely while abandoning longstanding stereotypes. Many of the pieces of evidence people are grabbing on to are far from inconclusive. The only thing we should conclude is that making assumptions is not the right way of going about this. After all the evidence that can come in does, then theory-building can begin. By trying to work evidence into a theory, we threaten the possibility of reaching the correct outcome while only furthering mistrust of the Muslim and Arab American community.

- This viewpoint was submitted by The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee: LSA senior Will Youmans, Engineering first-year student Ahmad El-Khatib, LSA first-year student Fadi Kiblawi, LSA senior Christina Guirguis, LSA senior Mara Yamsho n, LSA sophomore Osama Shwayhat, LSA first-year student Sophia Hussein, LSA senior Ragheb Abu Rmaileh, Public Health student Sawsan Abdulrahim, LSA junior Sarah Mohiuddin, LSA sophomore Maria Demashkieh, LSA senior Bob Zaid, LSA senior Intesar Elder, Alumnus Saladin Ahmed, LSA first-year student Nadia Khoury, School Of Medicine student Amer Ardati, LSA first-year student Bashar Al-Madani, Law student Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, LSA sophomore Jaffer Odeh, Engineering senior Ala Saket. LSA first-year student Sophia Gul Saeed, LSA senior Aiman Mackie, alumnus Paul Aljouny, Engineering junior Joe Namy, Engineering sophomore Eyad Abu-Isa, LSA junior Aziz AlKatib, LSA senior Lina Saad and LSA junior Zain Bengali.

11-22-99